The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 119, September, 1867: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and PoliticsVarious
General
The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 119, September, 1867: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics
Various
American periodicals
make others take care of them; and the stock, useful, harmless, and
insignificant, except as an aggregate, furnish the first class with
tools and the second with victims, and hitherto have done most of the
drudgery of the world. Our correspondents belong to a sluggish but
ambitious variety of the stock, that is seeking for some respectable or
semi-respectable method of avoiding the primeval labor curse. Their own
ingenuity failing them, they apply for the use of ours. The robust men,
who have "the wrestling thews that throw the world," know how to get
what they want, and ask no one to teach them. Indeed, to ask advice at
any time is an indication of weakness. We feel kindly to those who
consult us. It is a compliment that we were chosen, and not another; but
I do not think that we respect them the more for it.
It is evident that the heroic remedies recommended by my colleague are
likely to do harm rather than good to young persons who have outgrown
their moral strength. It would be more humane to prescribe a treatment
which, though it cannot cure, may alleviate their most distressing
symptoms, and enable them to bear the burden of life without too much
suffering. I shall, therefore, exhibit some of the methods by which
young fellows of tolerable education and address may get along without
undue exertion,--_Disce puer fortunam ex me, verumque laborem ex aliis_.
For a youngster of good nerves and hopeful temperament there is nothing
better than speculation,--as gambling without pasteboard and ivory is
called. Up to-day and down to-morrow is as pleasant and exciting to men
of that mould as seesaws and swings to children with strong stomachs.
But let those made of feebler stuff beware. Between the two millstones
of winning and losing they will be ground into despair, or into
shameless roguery. "Broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and
many there be which go in thereat."
There is no simpler way of "achieving honorable maintenance" than to
marry an heiress. But to seek fortune in matrimony is almost like
looking for it in a lottery. By some mysterious law of Providence, rich
people draw the high prizes. Money is apt to fall in love with money.
The female dollar prefers the attentions of her own kind. Cupid, "once a
god," as Tennyson writes, "is now a lawyer's clerk," with sharp eyes
wide open; and suits _in forma pauperis_ are as little likely to succeed
in courts of love as in courts of law.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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